Ohio Man Has To Pay Over $50 Million Following Crypto Scam

It has been revealed by the online publication The Block that a U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered an Ohio man to pay over $50 million for allegedly operating a multi-million dollar cryptocurrency investment scam.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has announced that Michael Ackerman from Alliance, Ohio, will no longer be allowed to trade in any of its markets or register with the agency.

The CFTC ordered Ackerman to pay a total of $54 million – $27 million in restitution to the victims and $27 million in penalties.

The allegations against Ackerman date back to 2020 when he was accused of running a fraudulent scheme that solicited funds from over 150 individuals and entities, claiming to trade digital commodity assets. The total amount deposited with him was at least $33 million.

“However, less than $10 million was used to trade digital commodity assets and the remaining funds were misappropriated for personal use or to prolong the fraudulent trading scheme,” the CFTC said on Wednesday.

According to the agency, Ackerman falsely claimed that he was trading digital commodity assets and making monthly returns of around 15 percent in order to attract potential customers.

“However, Ackerman was not a successful trader, and to conceal the fraud he provided customers with false accounting statements, newsletters containing false trading returns, and fictitious screenshots of the amount of money under management,” the agency said.

Speaking about crypto scams and hacks, the bankrupt FTX managed to recover a significant amount of money in liquid assets.

According to a recent report, the struggling cryptocurrency trading platform FTX has successfully recovered billions of dollars in assets.

With a current recovery amount of $7 billion and potentially more to come, FTX is making progress towards repayment to its clients. The platform is reportedly indebted to its users for a total of $8.7 billion.